Stig Dagerman - A Burnt Child

Take over!

Gun leans over the table. She is wearing her bathing suit and a yellow silk robe over it. For just a brief, brief moment, Bengt actually wants to touch her, just to get back at his father, of course. But he doesn’t, after all. A gust of wind thrashes the clothes on the line, so he looks at that instead.

When they eat they are all silent, except for the father, of course. The father can’t help but talk. He often speaks with his mouth full, so they can almost never understand what he’s saying. Bengt cringes. He doesn’t want his father embarrassing himself in front of Gun, because it will make her stronger. So he glances at her to see what she is thinking about his father. Gun glances back at Bengt and laughs. She is still laughing when the father offers her some liquor, but as she laughs, she holds her hand over her shot glass. Though it’s none of his business, Bengt is somehow pleased. Maybe not because she’s laughing, but because she doesn’t want to drink. His own glass is filled. And as the father screws the cork back on, Bengt gets a strange idea.

He personally finds it absurd, but he doesn’t do anything to stop it. He takes Gun’s shot glass and puts it in front of Berit, who is sitting next to him, poking at her food with a fork. She has her coat on, but he knows she is still cold, and therefore she should have a drink. The father also thinks it’s funny and pours a few drops— or several, really. When Berit refuses to drink, Bengt forces her by grabbing her harshly by the neck and raising the shot glass. Then she drinks voluntarily, so that he won’t cause her any real harm. After she drinks it, he is glad she did.

In the middle of the meal something beautiful happens. Gun suddenly points to the sea and they all look. A gray destroyer is coming in from the sea, clearing an ivory path through the water. Like a tiny rat, it scuttles rapidly into its hole between the high island and the mainland. Then it disappears. The ship isn’t what is beautiful. It’s what happens after the ship has disappeared. It is then that the swell comes gushing toward the island, no, toward the cottage, toward their porch—blistering, glass-green, and shimmering edges. This is when they instantly, and so beautifully, feel like they’re sitting together, all four of them, in a little boat. They are frightened by the vast size of the wave, but knowing that nothing could happen, nothing other than a little splashing, they become euphoric. There’s not a joy in the world that can bond people as strongly as fear does. Even Berit screams a little, out of enchantment, fear, and perhaps a little alcohol. Gun’s shoulders are soaked from sitting closest to the sea. So she pulls her robe down, and the father dries her off with his hands. When Bengt sees her shoulders, he thinks they are shamelessly naked, even though the swimsuit straps are covering them.

Now he is no longer happy. He has already started craving his revenge, and he will get it through a memory. Suddenly he says to his father:

Do you remember that time in Tjärholmen?

Bengt remembers it well. They had once taken a trip to an island in Lake Mälar. With a little white motorboat that belonged to a coworker. It was the year before the war, just a Midsummer’s Eve. The father and his colleague, who was steering, were sitting in the stern, eating sandwiches and drinking beer and hard liquor. Bengt was lying in the prow and reading a book by Marryat. The mother was sitting next to the motor and mending socks. The boat was moving quite slowly, so they were already very drunk by the time they got to Stora Essingen. Then the boat started wobbling, and when they got to Tjärholmen, the father fell in the water. He had wanted to jump ashore and moor the boat. But it wasn’t very deep, so no harm was done. But the mother still started crying.

Yes, the father says, I remember Tjärholmen.

When he says it, he looks at the son and grins. It isn’t until Bengt sees his smirk that he perceives his own stupidity. Because for anyone who wants revenge, Tjärholmen is a dangerous memory. He mentioned Tjärholmen because they had once been on that island with Mama on a Midsummer afternoon. Now he remembers that they both hated his mother at the time because she had ruined their Midsummer. Every minute of that Midsummer was filled with her complaints. When they set up the tent, she complained that they were pitching it in the worst possible place, even though there was no other place to put it. When they ate, she complained that they didn’t appreciate the trouble she took with the food but that they ate voraciously like animals. At night, she kept them from sleeping by complaining with incessant stubbornness that the mosquitoes were keeping her awake. Of course, it was their fault there were mosquitoes since they were the ones who chose the spot for the tent. She complained about the island all Midsummer Day because everything on it was wrong: the rocky and dirty swimming spots; the ugly and brushy woods; the muddy ground. Bengt had wanted to get back at her, but he couldn’t. But on the way back home, the men got their revenge by drinking the rest of the alcohol together, and they most certainly would have been taken in by the police at Bergsund Beach if Bengt hadn’t managed to catch a taxi in time.

With his question, Bengt only intended to arouse the father’s memory of his mother and not all the embarrassing things that accompanied it. Or did he? In any case, he’s remorseful and tries to forget it, but he simply can’t. Though he doesn’t want to, he can’t help comparing this new, peaceful Midsummer with the old, forgotten one. And to his burning shame, he notices that he feels better now, and to escape his shame he drinks a little more, and his eyes become beautiful. He looks at Gun with these eyes. But you eventually long to touch the one you have been staring at, so when he gets up from the table, he notices that Gun has some salt on her shoulders. He wipes the salt off with his fingers because it needs to be wiped off. Then he ventures to ask why the dog isn’t there. Gun says that dogs are simply bothersome on trips. Besides, they don’t like small islands like this one. Bengt agrees.

From then on, that Sunday passes by rather peacefully. They lie on blankets and beach towels at the inlet’s shore. When they are warm and dry after a swim, they go for another, immersing themselves, splashing around boisterously, swimming to the bottom and snorting as they emerge in almost the same place, even though they thought they had swum several feet under the water. And when the speedy boats make swells, all three of them leap into them, laughing at whoever gets knocked down. Bengt laughs most of all. After all, it is Gun’s body that he hates, so he enjoys seeing it roughed up, if only by a wave of water.

Berit isn’t laughing. Every time they come in from the water, shouting and wet, she pretends to be asleep as she lies in her black dress with a thin blanket over her lap. To be sure, she does look up whenever they splash water in her face, but she doesn’t like it. Bengt is irritated with her because she isn’t having fun. For he knows they’ll be having fun for only so long. Being happy is just the beginning of his revenge. As they drink their afternoon coffee, made on an open fire in the cleft, he tries getting her to drink a shot of vodka. He just wants to arouse some pleasure in her. She drinks it because she’s still afraid, but even after she drinks it, she still isn’t happy. So when the father pushes out the boat to row them around the island, she doesn’t join them—she doesn’t want to. When Bengt climbs into the boat, Gun says to him very kindly:

You can’t leave Berit alone.

So he climbs out again, leaving Gun and his father alone in the boat, and flings himself furiously into the sand next to his sleeping fiancée. He watches the boat as it quickly glides away from the inlet and around the point, leaving only a streak of darkness in the water. He is furious with himself for letting himself be outwitted. He is furious at Gun because she has outwitted him and stopped him from taking out his revenge, the part that’s to make certain they aren’t alone for a single second. But when the fiancée pretends to wake up, he is most furious at her for pretending to be asleep and not joining them on the boat. However, Berit is glad when she wakes up and finds they are alone. She joyfully wipes the water from his hair, but, annoyed, he jerks away and starts digging a hole in the ground. He is digging out a footprint, digging deeply and laying wet sand over it.